Frisk had seen their share of weird things. A skeleton flying an airplane, a frog with eyes on it's stomach, A man who had his hands surgically attached to his eyebrows, but this had to be one of the weirdest. A human who wore the crest of the Monster's army, and had glowing red eyes. Admittedly that second one wasn't really that weird, but more on that later. Frisk stared down at the soldier they had pulled from the wreckage of the battlefield. All around them other medics were looking over the wounded, but none of the other humans had the delta rune on their clothes. None of them looked like they'd sat on a landmine either, but Frisk was working on that. Carefully, they carried the unconscious soldier back to their tent and finished pulling shrapnel out of the soldier's legs.
Two more things they noticed, the soldier couldn't have been any older than 16, and appeared to be a highly decorated officer, but none of the medals on the soldier's coat were recognizable to Frisk. The soldier groaned and rolled over, exposing their arm which appeared badly broken. Frisk quickly set the bones and bandaged the wound, another curious thing, the human's skin was pale, like they hadn't seen sunlight in a long time. Frisk frowned, who was this teen?
"Frisk!" a voice called and Frisk carefully made their way out of the tent, towards the voice. A man with broad shoulders and a gun thrown over his back stood there.
"Yes, sir?" the medic asked, their short hair falling into their already closed eyes, old habits die hard. You keep your eyes closed as a kid to avoid teasing, you get so used to it that you no longer need them open to know where everything is. At least, that was Frisk's experience.
"The other medics are heading north after the army, are you continuing with the others?" he asked and Frisk shook their head.
"I've got a soldier here in critical condition, I need to stay and look after them," they lied, in truth, they were just curious about this unknown soldier, and wanted to know why they wore the emblem of the Monster's Royal family.
"Understood," the man said and moved onto the next medic tent, Frisk crept back into their own, only to come face to face with the soldier they had found, now awake. Their eyes glowed in the darkness of the tent, a bright, unearthly red that reminded Frisk of fire. They blinked and stared at the soldier, as the soldier stared back, then opened their mouth.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA-" the soldier let out a scream and Frisk launched themselves forward on instinct, clamping a hand over their mouth and muffling the scream. The soldier thrashed in their grip, trying desperately to get free, but Frisk held on. After a few minutes of wrestling the soldier gave up, perhaps out of exasperation, or maybe because of the fact they still had a broken arm and head wound. Either way, they calmed and Frisk carefully let the soldier go.
"Okay, I understand that probably wasn't the best start," Frisk mumbled quietly and brushed themselves off, and started looking over the soldier's bandages to make sure they hadn't reopened a wound.
"Who the hell are you?!" the soldier exclaimed, pulling themselves away from Frisk, who blinked in response.
"Sorry, Frisk, medic assigned to faucet five, league twelve." they said and looked up at their mystery soldier who had suddenly gotten a shade paler.
"Did you just say faucet five, league twelve?" they asked and Frisk nodded. They sucked in a breath.
"I gotta get out of here, now." they tried to stand and Frisk caught them as their legs gave out.
"Not so fast, you're too badly injured to go anywhere, and you're bleeding is only going to get worse if you keep moving around so fast," Frisk said and set the soldier down on the bed, now having a pretty good Idea of who, or rather what, they had in their tent. The soldier was holding their side in pain.
"Ow.." they groaned and Frisk huffed in exasperation.
"I warned you," Frisk whispered and the soldier just groaned again. "So what's your name, mystery soldier?" they asked as they began to undo the bandages around the wound.
"Why do you want to know?" the soldier huffed, glaring at Frisk with eyes that practically oozed hostility, but Frisk just chose to ignore it.
"Because I'd like to know the name of the super hot person I'm currently bandaging who appears to actually have a conscience unlike the other people I live with," they muttered nonchalantly and pretended not to notice when the soldier's cheeks lit up.
"My name is Chara, and what was that about having a conscience?" they asked and Frisk started to clean the wound that had began bleeding again.
"Your uniform, that's not the uniform of a Human soldier, it's the uniform of a monster soldier. You're wearing the crest of the Monster's royal family, and as soon as you saw me you screamed like I was something from your worst nightmare. All signs pointing to, you aren't on the human's side. You're on the Monster's." Frisk answered and started to bind Chara's wound again. The teen blinked, confusion in their eyes.
"You got all that from me screaming and wearing a different uniform? For all you know I could've been a spy," they protested, but Frisk shook their head.
"A spy wouldn't have skin as pale as yours, which leads to you living underground for a certain amount of years," Frisk finished the bandages and sat back on their ankles, keeping eye contact with the strange soldier.
"Okay, fine you got me, I'm on the monster's side, and you're not going to kill me?" Chara asked in utter confusion. They looked almost disappointed, like they'd been looking forward to the awful things that humans did to monsters they captured. Frisk shuddered just thinking about it.
"Me? No. Now, if someone else had found you, probably, but I'm not really that kind of person. Honestly I think this whole 'war with the monsters' thing is bonkers." they answered and they were just met with blank red eyes.
"Then why are you fighting it?" they asked and Frisk snorted.
"Getting straight into the personal questions are we?" they teased before letting their face fall into it's natural emotionless stare, "I didn't want to, but then I got drafted. When you're drafted you have no other choice, but to fight, lest you pay the consequences. Luckily for me, I managed to join the medical force so I don't have to actually fight anyone, but it's still not right…" Frisk trailed off. Screams echoed in their head, they remembered how many battle fields they had marched across, and how many times they had heard the screaming of monsters who had done nothing wrong, as they marched to their deaths. Frisk's eyes, already closed, clenched. Thinking about it only made the sounds worse.
"That's stupid," Chara muttered facing the wall.
"Well I didn't make the laws," Frisk responded and the other teen sighed.
"Humans are stupid," they mumbled and Frisk rose an eyebrow.
"Careful, because if my knowledge of human and monster anatomy is correct you're a human too," they scolded, but Chara just bowed their head.
"Exactly," they responded and Frisk frowned. That response sounded too much like something they would've said before the war. Before they stopped looking at themselves for criticism and just accepted the fact that they weren't ever going to be perfect. That scared Frisk for some reason.
"Awe come on, you aren't stupid," Frisk said and shoved the teen lightly, but was only met with empty red eyes.
"You don't know who I am or what I've done. I'm just as bad as every human, if not worse," they said in a voice devoid of emotion. Frisk felt like they were arguing with a younger version of themself, despite the fact that Chara was probably older than them. Frisk grit their teeth.
"I know you have to be a good person in order to care about the monsters enough to fight an die for them. No one, no human would put on that uniform and fight for the monsters of their own free will. None," Frisk argued and Chara knit their eyebrows.
"Why are you playing guidance counselor? I'm just some stupid soldier you found who is for the other team! Shouldn't you be, I don't know, trying to kill me?!" Frisk sighed and shook their head.
"I don't know what your experiences with humans are, but we aren't all bloodthirsty killers. Some of us just want to go home, but then remember they remember they don't have a home," Frisk answered and pulled out their bag.
Chara looked confused, as if they had been expecting a pond, only to find the whole ocean. They were staring at frisk as if they were some strange creature from another planet. Finally they muttered, "You sound like Asriel,"
"Who's Asriel?" Frisk asked and Chara clammed up, turning to face the wall, but not even attempting to get up, too weak perhaps. Frisk sighed.
"Really? The cold shoulder, how old are you, five?" they asked, but Chara did not respond. Frisk rolled their eyes behind their eyelids and rummaged around in their bag. "Okay look, normally I only give this out if we have an extremely traumatized patient, but you look like you're going to throttle me, so let's take this as a peace offering, shall we?" Frisk produced a chocolate bar from their bag and held it out to Chara. Chara stared at the candy for about five seconds before snatching it out of Frisk's hands and hugging it close as if it were some kind of baby.
"Where did you get this?" they asked, and just like that the hard exterior was gone, replaced with some kind of childlike excitement and a look like they held all of the stars in their eyes. Frisk had to swallow a tinge of guilt, that look reminded them too much of an old friend of theirs.
"Bought it a couple towns back. I have more if you-" Chara's face split into a giant childlike grin that made Frisk's heart melt. Oh god what was this kid doing to them?! They'd barely known them for twenty minutes and already they felt like they would give the world to see them smile like that again.
"Please!" The teen begged. Begged? What the heck?! Just a few minutes ago the kid looked like they wanted to stab them, now they were equivalent to an over excited five-year-old.
"Okay, fine you can have more, but only if you promise to tell me more about how you ended up with the Monsters," Frisk bribed and Chara considered for a moment.
"Fine, now give me chocolate!"